


Till Death do Us Part

by toujours_nigel



Category: Rock On!! (2008)
Genre: Bollywood, Multi, bad hindi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-10
Updated: 2008-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-07 03:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4247115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rob is dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Sickness and In Health

**Author's Note:**

> Written in oh god 2008

“Coming?” K.D. at the door, eyes shadowed. Aditya’s gone, with a final look at him, a final clutch at Joe’s stiff shoulder

“No. You go ahead.”

“Should we let Debbie know?”

Joe turns, slightly, hair falling into his eyes. “Nahin. Chhor.”

K.D. looks at him–all laughter silenced—he spoilt what was a good day. “You sure?”

Hard to say who he’s talking to, but Joe stays silent, so he has to drag up a weak smile from somewhere. “Kyun, tujhe darr lag raha hain akele ghar lautneko?”

Joe snorts at that, and K.D grins, ducks his head, leaves.

Pulls the door to, as he goes, and then it’s just the two of them, and he has to look away. _Has to_ , because there’s more pain in Joe’s eyes, face, posture, than there was a day ago, and he’s the one who put it there. “Go home, Joe.” Still turned away, because Joe looks broken, defeated, and if he’s done what ten years of life couldn’t, he never wanted that kind of power. Not really. “Debbie tujhe toh pitegi-hi, mujhe maar bhi dalegi.” And Joe doesn’t answer, doesn’t look up, and the silence in the room is too sombre to break up with another joke and so terrifying that he has to look. Because if Joe’s sitting there, inches from him, breaking his great heart needlessly into tiny pieces, then he can’t not know. “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Head still bowed, fingers twisting into hospital-issue blankets so savagely that they’re sure to tear, and that breaks him a little, too.

“It’s okay to go home, you know. Debbie’ll be worried.” Joe just looks at him, face blank. “You told them not to call her,” he prompts. Joe keeps looking, eyes softer now, some of the rage he always seems to feel gone. “Joe?”

“You fucktard…”

“What?” But he grins helplessly, because, yes, finally, Joe’s smiling, and hasn’t he always tried to make him do that, since back in college, far more than ten years ago? “What?”

But the smile was a momentary thing, and Joe’s sombre again—nothing like the Joe he knew back when, all the fire gone, and only this burned-out man left behind—and shakes his head slightly so that the hair—why has Debbie never cut it all off? She never let him grow it this long before—covers his face, hides his expression—another shield Joe’s acquired. “You’re dying, Rob, and you’re worried my wife will be anxious.”

“More like I’m worried she’ll kill me,” he smirks. “And I’m _not_ dying, Joe.” Joe looks up at the conviction in his voice—he’s not faking it, though tonight he feels like just giving in would be easier. He’s not dying just yet, because he’s not going to have ‘Anu Malik’s faithful assistant’ carved on his head-stone and that’s the peak of his career till now, for all that it had come so close, ten years ago. He’s dying when he has something that he’s not ashamed of, other than his friends. His family, well…

“And I’m not going home just yet.”

He shrugs. He’s not Aditya, he knows when to back down. If Joe thinks he needs to sit around for another—he checks the clock—half-an-hour and stare at the walls, fine. “Sure. I thought K.D. was giving you a ride, bas.”

“Won’t need one. Main yenhi rehe raha hoo, aaj raat.”

Ah. That explains that, at least. Joe’s always been one for grand gestures, even when, especially when, they only hurt everyone around him. “Tujhe kahaan chhupayoon?” Joe looks up, a bit surprised. “Idiot,” he grins. “Visiting hours adhe ghante mein khatam hone wale hain.”

“I know,” Joe says, voice low and hoarse. “Hum ne doctor se poochha… he said one of us could stay with you…”

“Oh.” That’s far more time than he’s spent with any of them—with Joe—in the last months, in the last ten years. “And…” he scrambles for normalcy, for levity. “I suppose K.D ko Devika se milna tha?”

“Kuch waisa hi soch le.”

He sits up, pushes against the piled pillows. “Aur tujhe ghar nahin jana hain kya?”

“Kuch waisa hi soch le,” Joe repeats dully, and he has to look at the ragged blankets to remind himself that it _is_ Joe, despite the long hair and handle-bar moustache and the slump to his spine.

“Debbie ko tune bataya bhi nahin…” He bites his lip, hard, sinks back into his pillows, headache hitting back for the sudden shifts in posture. “Whatever the fuck,” he growls, viciously jabbing two fingers into the bridge above his nose. Damn it.

“Chhor bhi, Rob.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, straining to keep his voice level. Chhor bhi. Won’t be the first debate he abandoned, the first question he’s left unanswered, unasked. It’s practically what he does—K.D.’s the comic relief, Aditya’s the moody writer, Joe the angry young man, and he’s…well, the peace-maker and pity-object.

“You okay?”

He grimaces an ‘yes’ to Joe and thankfully the duty nurse comes in—visiting hours are over—before he has to ask Joe to look for her. She fusses over him a bit, taking over-long to feed him his meds and take his temperature and the hundred other things he’s determinedly ignorant about. And he’d think it’s for him, that she’s flirting with him, except that he doubts anyone’s stupid enough to flirt with a cancer patient, or really, with any other male with Joe in the room. And, sure enough, medication done, she turns to Joe.

“Aap kya aaj yanha rahenge?”

Joe nods. “I’ve talked to the doctor.”

“Phir toh thik hai,” she says, flashing him a blinding smile. He hides his own behind a hand.

Joe nods again.

“It’s okay,” the girl says—little girl, at least half-a-dozen years younger than him, more likely a decade—hand fluttering out to rest on Joe’s shoulder. “Aapke bhai ko jald hi release kiya jayega.” Bhai? What the hell?

“He isn’t my brother,” Joe says, staring pointedly at her painted hand on his shoulder, till she grows self-conscious and withdraws it. She looks at him for support, but he gives her a bland smile in return.  Ten years ago, that uninflected sentence would have actually pleased him.

“I’ll see to getting a cot in here,” she says, hurrying out.

“You shouldn’t have scared her off,” he says. Anything to get back to their forced, artificial easiness. “Poor kid.”

“I’m a married man,” Joe says. It would have been, “I love Debbie,” once. But he’s not close enough to be told such personal things, anymore.

He nods, turns on his side, away from Joe, biting back a grunt—the meds. haven’t kicked in yet. “Ghar chala ja. Abhi bhi waqt hai.”

Joe says nothing—what’s wrong with him, this huge, silent man he doesn’t know—and they stay like that, him staring at the white-green wall and Joe tugging at the blankets, stiff on the uncomfortable chair, while the seconds tick by loudly.

* * *

 

The nurse comes back in, takes in their silence, and quietly checks up on him again. She sneaks a look at Joe, and he wonders suddenly whether she was a screaming school-girl at one of their shows, a decade back. “Aap thik hain?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, tries to make it reassuring.

She smiles back. “I’ll get your food.”

“Thanks.”

“Aur aapka cot.” Joe nods—he’s bigger now, than he used to be, silence a layer around him. Big scary man and he’d hate to run into Joseph Mascaranhas on an empty street—die of the heart-attack, likely. She smiles again, a nervous twitch of the lips directed at neither Joe nor him.

Slips to the door, calls to someone who comes in, dragging a folded bed. They set it up at the far end of the tiny room, and he wonders whether those few feet of space will be enough to make Joe shed some of the tension that’s curving his shoulders. Leave with the implied promise of coming back with his no-doubt-pathetic dinner.

“You should go eat,” he says. “I think maine canteen dekha tha, jab tests karwake laut rehe the—couple of doors down from the lift, on the first floor.” Joe shrugs. “Ja bhi.” No movement or sign thereof. “Dammit, Joe, mujhe babysitter ki zaroorat nahin hai.

“Achchha?” Eyebrow quirked, and he can see the ‘remember when…’ story Joe’s thinking of.

“Haan. Aur, well, haspatal mein toh pehle se hi hoon.” Joe nods, but still doesn’t move. He’s reaching for a pillow to throw at him when the nurse walks in yet again. “Thanks,” he says, then, because he’s never been above manipulation, “Umm… nurse, would you do us a favour?”

“Yes?”

“My friend needs to eat and neither of us knows where the canteen is. Could you take him?” She nods, and he smiles happily at her, ignoring Joe smouldering at him. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” she smiles at him, and turns to Joe. “Mr…”

“Mascarenhas,” Joe mutters, standing.

“Mr. Mascarenhas, aap mere sath ayienhe, please.” She leads the way out, and Joe follows, waiting only to glare at him. He waves, smiling blandly.

Then puts the first spoonful of his hospital-issue ‘food’ into his mouth, gags, and heroically shovels down the rest. Well, about half of the rest.

 

* * *

 

“Tune hume bataya kyun nahin?” Joe had come back in time to see him choke down the last mouthful he’d swallowed, decided that the placement of the cot was somehow unsatisfactory, and was now perched on it, next to his bed.

“You’re so…epic, you and Aditya. I didn’t want it turned into a melodrama. I didn’t want us to get back together because I was dying,” he shrugs. Joe just looks at him, and he shoves away the tray carrying the mush masquerading as food. It isn’t as though he can’t fling accusations at Joe, but he’s too tired. And he’s never been epic at all.

“Have you told your parents, at least?”

“No. They… unka sirf ek hi beta hai—Derek.”

“Why?” And that’s a justified question, at least—he’s never been as close to his family as Joe, but never as estranged as Aditya had been, at a point. He and K.D. had managed to find some balance. “Because you didn’t give up music?”

“No,” he smiles, “because I gave up women, actually.”

Joe stares at his joined hands for a long time—long enough that he grows afraid: he can see the left hand twitching because of the sheer force the right hand is gripping it with—and just breathes. “And when was this?”

“Couple of months after,” he says. “Just… felt like it was stupid to not tell them.”

 “And you told them once we were out of the scene,” he notes.

“Haan. As it is, K.D. ran into Derek the next day, and… at least tu nehi tha.” Because K.D. had backed away, and cracked a few jokes and then come over to haul him out for a commiserating drink. Whereas Joe would have managed to get into a fight and beat up Derek and everything would have gone to hell. Not that it hadn’t, anyway.

“Achchha. Fine.”

“Just say it.” Strange, this Joe who doesn’t talk, who holds tight to his own reins.

“Told your boyfriend?” Joe dead-pans. He stiffens, unable to believe that that old game’s being resurrected now. But Joe’s face is totally blank, and he’s hit by déjà vu as he talks by rote.

“What boyfriend?” he grins. Old _old_ game, and it’d made him laugh then too, out of sheer relief.

“Come on,” Joe smirks, “you must have a boyfriend.” It’d been K.D. who said that, the first time, after the expected jokes about his name.

He shakes his head. They’re skipping about half the lines, of course, because they need Aditya and K.D. around for the full thing, but this is still fun—this reminder of how carelessly his friends had accepted him. Though it had always made Debbie furious. “Still in love with you, Joe.” This had always been the response, had always been considered funny, had always been true.

Joe tries to grin back, fails and looks away. He ducks his head, furious with himself. This is only funny with everyone there—all four of them, and possibly a slightly pissed-off Debbie.  Here and now… “Shayad tujhe ab sona chahiye,” Joe says, voice tight.

He nods, shifts, trying to get comfortable. Then Joe’s there, helping him settle, and that was a mistake, clearly, because he bites back a gasp when Joe touches him—big hand dark against his pallid arm—and Joe hears him, pulls back a bit to see his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I…”

“Are you okay?” He nods frantically, tugging the blankets up over himself, shutting his eyes to Joe—he has shields of his own, and the hospital’s stripped them all away from him. It doesn’t help much, or at all, because Joe’s still got his arm clutched, and shakes it gently, like he would a kitten or puppy. “Because you need the rest, Rob.”

“I think,” he says, “that they’d still let you out, if you asked.”

“I think,” Joe answers levelly, “ke tu bohot over-react kar raha hai.”

He shrugs, tries to pull away—but Joe’s always been a lot stronger than any of the rest of them, and holds him in place as effortlessly as he would his son. “I just think…”

“Don’t.” The voice is soft, and Joe’s arm round his chest has become something like a hug. “Idhar dekh.” He does, half-afraid. “Rob?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s okay. Always has been.” He nods, and Joe lets go of him, still bending over his bed, face two inches from him, hair falling to conceal them both in a slightly greasy curtain.

He shouldn’t, but he’s never been a giant like Aditya and Joe, has never been anything other than stubborn and manipulative and self-absorbed. So he grabs Joe’s hand and pulls him down to kiss him.

And because Joe _is_ a giant and has never been small-minded or anything but loyal and giving, he gets to keep doing it, to taste Joe, feel the moustached lips open and let him in.

By the time Joe wraps both arms round his back and pulls him up against his chest, one hand cradling his head, he’s gasping into Joe’s mouth and clutching his swelling biceps, and Joe’s kissing back hungrily, and…

And it comes as something of a shock—though it shouldn’t, it really shouldn’t—when Joe stiffens and nearly rips his hands away and moves away so fast that he falls back and watches as Joe stares at him for a moment, and then leaves, barely breaking stride to pick up his ever-present guitar.

He lies on his back, head tipped up, clenching his jaw and pretending his eyes are watering and his head is pounding because of the sudden movements and it has nothing to do with anything else.

Because, after all, Joe, as he says, is a married man, and as he leaves unsaid, loves Debbie.

Always and only.


	2. Forsaking All Others

She’s never been a ‘good Indian girl’—smoked, drank, partied, swore, hung out with the wrong sort of boys, had sex. So it’s really ironic, in the horrible way that means malicious gods are laughing—Our Father who art in Heaven grinning madly over a couple daiquiris—that she could be the poster girl for the ‘good Indian wife’, right down to sitting in the dark, at 4:30 a.m., wondering, whether her husband’s turned unfaithful, after nine years of being married.

First time the thought’s crossed her mind. First time it’s had reason to. Which is stupid, perhaps, because she knows he turns heads. But she _knows_ —deep inside, held secure as a shield against her life—that he loves her. And she should be sleeping, curled tight around that knowledge. He’s just at a party, and yeah, it’s 4:30 in the morning, but she remembers—ten years ago, and not forgotten—watching the sun rise through groggy eyes, on the beach, all six of them, after nights of never bothering to sleep.

But it’s 4:30 in the morning, and all that is a distant memory and reality is her in this shabby living room, waiting for her husband to come home and afraid he won’t. And a small part of her—Debbie-the-stylist, Debbie-the-groupie, who has always resented how she’s been forced to look, who is revolted by the fish stink that clings to her clothes and her skin and nestles beneath her nails—curls her upper lip and says that she should be grateful it’s not happened before, if indeed it’s not. And not even her rock-strong belief in Joe can stand up to that assault, because she’s never been plastic pretty like the girl she knows Aditya must have married and she has noticed every manner in which her looks have been worn down under the slow siege of the life she lives.

And Joe has lived with her in seeming happiness, but it’s Joe and he loves her—she still knows that—and wouldn’t abandon her because she looks weary and worn and older, day by day, than him. But he has lived this life in seeming happiness—no, no that, never that, but an acceptance, at least—and all it had taken for him to go chasing after that dream—will-o-the-wisp, take him and destroy him—was to have Rob and K.D.—not even Aditya—to show up on their doorstep, awkward and grinning. So what’s to say he won’t follow other dreams, other girls (boys) with pretty faces and polished bodies and clean hands, sneers one of her inner Debbies. And again she’s silent inside her own head, because what’s to say he won’t, really? Because for all his acquiescence, and all his quiet smiles when…God, even that won’t hold him, their son’s not going to be enough to hold him, if he chooses to leave—she knows, though they think she doesn’t, of all the trips he’s taken her baby on. And…

The door creaks open, gently, and Joe steps into the room, cat-stealthy. He sees her—of course he does—and flips the light switch on. “Hey,” and his voice is hoarse, “tum abhi sone nehi gayi?”

She fights to not let relief flood her—the fact that he’s come home means nothing except maybe the girl he was fucking threw him out—and says, snarl barely-suppressed, “Was the party good?”

He comes closer, and now she can see the lines etched into his face—exhaustion, fear—and the way he seems to tremble. “We weren’t at the party.” He drags himself to the sofa, sinks heavily onto it. “Haspatal.” Her heart stops, though he’s here and upright and alright, even if he’s weary and grieving in a way that frightens her. So she bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood and waits. “Rob. Woh… he’s dying.” Painful thump of her heart in her throat. If Rob’s dying of… if there’s anyone responsible for it, there’ll be hell to pay, and she doesn’t want that. But Joe doesn’t blaze into sudden anger, just keeps looking at his clenched fists, the words coming out of him, slow and halting, like it hurts him to say them. “He… didn’t turn up. Then K.D….afterwards… wanted to go see him,” self-recrimination in his voice, for all that it must have been pure whim on K.D.’s part, and she strokes his shoulder with a careful hand. “Uska collapse ho gaya tha,” he says, “we called an ambulance… Aditya…” He stops, rubs at his eyes. “Rob has brain cancer.”

She grips his shoulder—hard, nails digging in—and tries to see straight. Rob, mocking grin and sincere lies and that awful, annoying way of saying things that should be hidden, and the way he’d smiled at her, first day in college, and his face as Joe and Aditya fought and how had none of them known, when he came back and smiled the old smile from that gaunt face? She’d tried to pretend they weren’t there—any of them, dragging her life from the routines she’d built, but how had… “You should have invited him in,” she says. “Pata hai bohut raat ho chuki hain, but he could have had a cup of coffee.” She gets up, away, because she has to do something, or she’ll just join Joe in his much-delayed break-down. And she can’t. He looks at her blankly, as she shuts the windows and draws the curtains. “Aditya. K.D. Whoever gave you a ride.”

He looks down again, face carefully blank. But she’s seen the mercury-swift flash of guilt in his face and the biting pain of suspicion finds its way past the dull roar of grief. “They didn’t.” Pause enough for her to draw breath—she feels like she’s been punched in the stomach, and it’s small and petty to think these thoughts, but she can’t help them. “The doctor said hum mein sirf koi ek rehe sakta tha and…” And her husband stayed.

“I suppose,” she says, feeling her way to this—careful, careful—so as not to accuse anyone, “God. Tum logo pe… Aditya aur K.D. mujhe call karna bhi bhool gaye,” she says, with a small, wry smile, twisting to face him full on.

He meets her gaze for a moment, before his eyes dip. “I told them not to,” he rumbles. “Tumhe khamoka worry karna nehi chahta tha.”

She shudders—can feel it run down her spine, stiffen her shoulder. Alone. Alone with Rob, who has a talent for saying things he shouldn’t and twisting hearts and who has always, always, been shiningly open about his… Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And he’d told them not to call her. And he’d left Rob, who loves him and who’s dying and he looks at her—God—just looks at her again, eyes guilty. “Kya tumhe relieve karne ke liye koi aya tha?” He says nothing, does nothing, and when she’d married him he’d been alive and fiery and now he’s solid and stolid and has she turned him into this? “Joe…”

“He’s dying, Debbie.” What answer is that? But he brushes past her and she gropes for the sofa and sits and tries to keep breathing. Because Joe’s home and he’s done nothing and said very little, if anything, and she’s over-reacting, because he’s come home to her and that counts, doesn’t it, that he left Rob in the middle of the night and came home to her? When Rob’s in the hospital, hurting and alone and dying? And it is an answer.

She finds the strength to get up. Finishes closing the windows, checking that the doors are locked. Checks on her son and her mother-in-law, sleeping on twin beds in one small room. Ignores the litany of “It’s okay,” running in her head, because if it is, then she needs no litany. Stops, one moment, to catch her breath, square her shoulders. Heads into their room and forgives Joe all his failings. Because Joe’s on his knees, in front of the bed, head bowed, hands clasped in prayer. A small crucifix hangs on the wall behind the bed, but it serves only for decoration. And Joe doesn’t pray, not really, other than saying grace at meals and attending Mass when he feels like it. And never like this, this stern convulsed effort that feels like he wants nothing more than to be punished.

So she sits on the bed and unclasps his hands and kisses him, gentle and forgiving, till he stops looking so despairing. Pulls him to the bed. Pulls him against her. Undresses him with soft, sensuous touches. Tugs his hands, his mouth, where she wants them. Wraps her legs around him. Lets him into her, slow and deep. Lets, and if his hands, lips, body, turn too-reverent from too-wanting, if she thinks, feels, _knows_ , that, tonight at least, hers is not the body he desires, she lets him drown his sins and sorrows in her, all the same, take comfort in her skin and bury himself between her breasts, all in silence, no word of how used and betrayed she feels, because he is hers, and she will always pick up the pieces when others and he himself have broken him.

Because she knows, deep inside, held secure as a shield against her life, that he loves her. 

Perhaps not only. Perhaps not even always.

But he does.


	3. Gathered Here to Witness

They win the Channel V Launchpad contest. **They win**. And that’s all kinds of good, for Magik, though this time they’d not been looking for anything at all, they’d just wanted to see, to prove, whether they still had it in them. But that’s not to say that they don’t enjoy it—record deals are beautiful things, especially when it’s been this long and they’ve gone their separate ways in between. 

But they _have_ gone their separate ways, and this re-union, this melding of their lives in the last months, has happened almost in secret, because they’re terribly private men, all of them, even K.D. And dragging each other into the lives they live under the gazes of others—unknown and familiar strangers—is excruciating.   

It’s one thing (one level of awkwardness) to visit Joe’s house and realize that Mrs Mascarenhas, always a bit vague, has changed only to intensify in all the ways that are for the worse—has become vaguer, dottier, has a very tenuous grasp on reality, emerges from it only to criticize Debbie or lament some long-lost, never-occurred past. She recognizes them all, at least, and stays out of it, beyond trying to feed them week-old cake, and that lets them talk and properly reacquaint themselves with Debbie. And it delights Arthur and they’re all happy to put up with a lot for Joe’s son. The best part of that evening, far as he’s concerned, is when Sakshi catches Debbie’s eye, halfway through one of Mrs. Mascarenhas’ rants, and grins. And Debbie smiles back. 

And anyway, Joe’s family has never been the terrifying part, really. That’s always been something the Zaveris excel at. And ten years of getting none of them to fuss over has done nothing to lessen the impact of K.D.’s mum and aunts turning their full maternal attention on one. He can tell that there’s a moment when Sakshi wants very badly to run away. But the moment passes, and after the initial fussing, most of it falls on Rob, who, according to the female Zaveris, has grown very thin (he has), should eat more regularly (wouldn’t help), should consider getting married (not without a few laws changing), and, this above all, ‘beta, tu tthik toh haye na?’ He can see Rob physically flinch, and then gather his strength and throw death-glares at K.D., before smiling blandly and proceeding to shamelessly flirt with one of K.D.’s aunts, fifteen years older and fifteen kilos heavier than him, who blushes and giggles like a thirteen year-old all the same. 

He’d think that Rob sets up the next round as revenge, because at least three of the people at the soiree he takes them to flirt with Rob, and about five hit on Joe, if it weren’t for the fact that Rob looks steadily more mortified, and, at the end of the evening, when one completely-soused and terribly-beautiful girl tries to hold Joe’s hand to coo over how perfectly like musician’s hands they are, and Joe looks around to check what states of entertainment and or inebriation they’re in and whether any of them are at all inclined to come help, (He’s not. K.D.’s not.) Rob tugs a somewhat-intimidating man over to the two of them, tells the girl that Joe’s hands don’t match up at all to the man’s and drags them all out, K.D. near hysterical. 

While all this is going on, Sakshi’s been quietly agitating over guest lists and food-and-alcohol menus and catering and flower arrangements, and, above all, whether she can actually afford to exclude the horrifying man-eaters from the party. She can’t, and, in retrospect, he thinks it all turned rather better than it could have, considering that they’d won barely a month ago, and the emotional turmoil before, and the equally-emotional making-up afterward, had left Joe a bit on the edge and they’d been on display twice already, among people he was utterly unused to, and Mrs. Gupta had tried to fondle him. Given all that, he considers himself lucky that Joe hadn’t hurt her, and that he and Rob had been able to pull the two to opposite directions before things got worse. 

Sakshi, of course, has had no experience with the kind of damage Joe can actually inflict when he wants to, and had confabulated with Debbie and Devika, and, well, K.D. hadn’t been able to make it, but the rest of them… He hasn’t been to Goa since their last trip together, and, frankly this feels good. Even if he’s been driving for hours now, and they should be at least half-way there. 

* * *

Rob twitches in the back seat, rolls up to sit straight. “Aditya?” 

“Kya?” 

“Agle dhabe par rukenge,okay?” 

He nods, eyes flicking from Rob to Joe, sprawled out in the back. “Yeah. Okay.” 

“Should…” Joe yawns, “kya hum tujhe relieve kare?” 

He grins. “Tujhe tu mein doonga hi nehi. Saala. Stick driving toh ata nahi hai tujhe. And, as for Rob…” They both look at Rob appraisingly, he in the rear-view mirror, Joe actually twisting around, face pressed into the upholstery. 

Rob gives them both the finger, lazy about even that. “Haan. Haas le. Yahaan mein maut ke moonh mein latka hoon, and you fuckers find it funny.” 

“Hilarious,” Joe grins. But he doesn’t miss, and Rob certainly can’t, the way his eyes turn serious as he holds Rob’s gaze. Joe Mascarenhas, 6ft 4inch mother-hen. 

“Yes, Mom, I’ve taken my meds, Mom.” Rob slouches back as Joe shakes his head, swats him and twists again so he’s looking forward. “After we get back to Mumbai,” he says, voice a lot less amused, “kya tum dono mere ghar aa sakte ho? Aur K.D., of course. Mangalvar subha?” 

“Shaam ko nehi hoga?” he says. 

“Kyun?” 

“Will witness karwana haye,” Rob says lazily. Grins, like it’s trivial. “Actually, Joe, tu na aye toh hi behetar hoga shayad.” 

“Kyun?” And between the last question and this, Joe’s voice has hardened. 

“Mmmm. Well, wouldn’t hurt. Par I’m almost sure ke interested parties witness nehi ban sakte, isiliye kehe raha tha.” Rob’s going out of his way to slouch and seem unconcerned, and that has never boded well. “Not that main tujhe kuchh de raha hoon, ya in dono ko… Par I’m leaving my apartment to Arthur, isliye shayad tu sign nehi kar payega, I’m not sure.” 

This is almost funny in really-really-not way, how Rob keeps his slouch intact while Joe visibly struggles not to seethe, fails, and comes out with yet another “Kyun?” this one in a growl. 

“Because I rather like Arthur?” Joe keeps staring. “Because if I try to give Andy my house he’ll chop off bits I rather like attached?” No change in Joe, though he’s now curious about who Andy is. “Because I refuse to let my family inherit anything I own?” Joe glares a bit more. “Because,” Rob says, and this is the real answer, because Rob will always go for self-depreciation before honesty, “I went to see my oncologist, do hafte pehle, aur… he said mujhe ab mahino mein ginna chahiye, if not weeks.” 

There’s nothing to be said to that, and he drives silently for a bit. He can vaguely see in the rear-view, what looks like Joe putting a hand around Rob’s wrist and edging closer. And if Joe’s face is a mask of sorrow, that’s easy enough to understand, with the way his heart tightens as he drives.

* * *

By the time they find the dhaba, Rob’s decided that they need to cheer up—how utterly ironic is it that Rob has to make that effort—and gaily (yes, he’s got an inner five-year-old) ignores the fact that everyone else inside seems to be in their mid-to-late forties, fucking huge, and stares at them like they’re intruding in a fiercely-guarded private space. “Joh bhi bol, this trip was a good idea.” Large grin, obviously-fake and still somehow cheerful. 

He orders three chais before sitting down. “Hmm. Yeah, it is.” 

Joe grimaces. “Sakshi kuchh zyada hi disturbed ho gayi…” Joe and Debbie tend to treat Sakshi like she’s not quite real, like some cross between a porcelain doll and a pampered baby sister. 

“Tujhe zyada din nahi pehchanti haye na, isliye,” Rob says, in what would be a bland voice were it not for the smirk on his face. “Yeh toh tere liye kam tha.” 

He grins too. Been a while since they’ve teamed up on Joe. Everything had been too fragile for any of them to do this. But Rob’s usually the best judge of Joe’s temper, and Joe himself seems to be mostly-bored by the whole thing. “Isn’t used to it anymore,” he says, signaling the tea-boy to their table. “Dus saal ho gaye hain, sab bhul gaya haye.” The boy sets down the glasses with unnecessary force, tea sloshing over onto Rob’s hands folded on the table, and then glowers at Rob. “Remember the way he used to get hit on?” 

Joe rolls his eyes and hides his smile behind his grimy glass. “Yaad hai, us baar, after that fucking awful dandiya thing, that girl came up and simpered at him?” Rob shakes his hand to get the tea off it, then hitches his voice up a few registers. “Aap kitna achchha guitar bajate hai,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes at Joe, “kya aap mujhe sikhayenge?” Then she’d tried to pull the guitar on herself, with Joe still wearing it, but that’s not doable, not here at any rate. Once or twice, when they’ve been slacking off after practice and Rob’s been in a riotous mood, they’ve done the whole thing.  

He shakes his head at Joe’s my-friends-hate-me-and-I’m-a-stoic-sufferer expression, which would work better if he couldn’t see the faint smile beneath his moustache, and picks up the thread. “Aur woh group, the one that accosted us, jab hum perform karke laut rahe the… ‘Oh, Magic,’” he grins, trying and failing to imitate them, “then suddenly, ‘Oh, Joe. You’re such a good guitarist, oh, you’re so perfect, my friends and I…’” And he’s forgotten the lines, because this is K.D.’s bit of the routine, really. So he skips the next story, and ploughs onto the fourth, which is really the whole point. “Par hum sirf larkiyonko kyun blame kar rahe hain? Remember that man,” he says, and Rob grins widely, and Joe’s given up even the pretence of not liking this, “us bar mein…” 

“Mmmm, kya aap mere taraf dekh rahen the?” Rob says, suddenly all swishy and flirty and frankly camp, in a way Rob never has been, and in a way that still doesn’t come close to the person being talked about. Joe raises both eyebrows, all polite distaste. “Mein tab se dekh raha hoon ke aap mujhe ghoor rehe hain.” Joe, thoroughly in the game now, shakes his head, leans back in his chair to put more space between the two of them. “Scared, big boy?” Rob leers. “Or curious?” And as he licks his lower lip—gods, so fucking overdone—and leans close to place a hand on Joe’s shoulder, it strikes him that this is definitely the wrong place to play this game. “Wonder what being with a man would be like?” The dhaba’s gone suddenly quiet. 

And then Joe grips Rob’s wrist and slowly pulls his arm away, and says, calm and collected, “Fucking you won’t help me find out, will it?” And he holds on to the hand a bit too long and then lets go like it hurts him and Rob’s smile is a bit artificial. But he notices these and files them away only peripherally, because, once having felt the eyes of the dhaba on them, he can’t un-feel it, and all the eyes have gone from distasteful to full of a terrifying sort of hatred. 

“Chale,” he mutters, “I really don’t want to try the food here.” Rob nods and leads the way out, and by the time he’d paid for the teas and left the dhaba and reached the car, the other two are seated. Joe in the back, where he’s been all morning, and Rob, back stiff, in the front passenger seat.  

He wonders for a moment whether to ask them, but Rob and Joe have always had their own ways of getting into and out of awkward moments, and it might really be nothing. So he gets in silently and starts to drive. 

It’s a bit more than nothing, because the silence lasts the next two hours, till they get to Goa, and neither of them say anything when he stops the car in one of the nicer residential areas, and even when he takes them inside and explains that it belongs to Sakshi’s father, none of the expected rich boy taunts are forthcoming.  

And that unnerves him enough that he doesn’t poke them about it, and instead calls Sakshi to tell her they’ve reached and asks her to call and tell Debbie and just snoops around the house for a while, noting places where repairs need to be made and opens a few windows to let in air before he decides that if it is nothing, there’s no reason for him to not go and annoy Rob—not Joe, just yet, Joe needs time to come out of his sulks—and ask him who the hell the mysterious Andy is. And if it is something, Rob’s refereed for him and Joe often enough that the favour should be returned. 

* * *

 

Rob in one corner of the bed, back to the wall, staring up. Joe, leaning over him, hand round the back of his neck. Whatever he’d expected, this isn’t it. He stops at the door, watches as Joe lowers his head and kisses Rob. He can hear the sound he makes, shocked and high, and so do they, because Rob moves away, something like relief crossing his face. 

But Joe doesn’t turn, doesn’t move, does nothing but tell him to lock the door, sit down, watch, and he does. Sits on the edge of the bed and watches Joe hold Rob in place and kiss him, while Rob sits puppet-still. And he’s half-afraid that what he’s watching isn’t mutual—because he doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there—when Rob snakes an arm round Joe’s neck and pulls him down. 

And Joe goes easily; all the tension in his shoulders gone, lowers himself to the bed, still kissing Rob, free hand resting at his waist. And Rob’s given into this, and he’s cradling Joe’s face. And the way Rob hesitates a little, and ghosts his hands over Joe’s face, neck, shoulders, tugs at him, increases the blood-deep, bone-deep ache he always feels for Rob. And it’s more than a little disturbing to realize that he’s watching them like it’s something he needs to see—Joe pressing Rob to the bed. He looks away, ears burning, and it’s better that way, because they’re both quiet enough that if he doesn’t look he can pretend nothing’s happening. 

But he does look, finally, aching with curiosity. And the quiet gasps he’s being hearing are from Rob and Joe’s kissing him, still, face and throat and collar bone and a hand unbuttoning his shirt and thumbing his nipples, then dipping his head to suck on one. That prompts a choked back moan. A hand down the front of his jeans—why is he still looking?—earns Joe the first moan, and he’s dragged up for a kiss, Rob’s hands clutching at his t-shirt, pushing it up, pulling it off, to get to skin. 

He pretends that the vase in the corner is fascinating and that he can’t see, in his peripheral vision, that Joe’s lining kisses down Rob’s chest and too-flat stomach, pausing to ghost his fingers over his ribs, fingers fitting almost neatly into the shallows of skin and muscle. Pretends he isn’t hard from watching them. Natural physical reaction, and that’s true, but it’s far less true than the fact that he’s reacting less to the two people having sex and more because it’s Rob and Joe. Joe, undoing Rob’s flies and dragging off his jeans, and it’s impossible to un-eroticize the sight of Joe nuzzling Rob’s hip, taking the loose skin where groin meets thigh between his teeth, tracing delicate fingers over his thighs. Rob groans, claws a hand into the sheets and forces himself still. Joe smiles to himself, shifts down an inch, still propped on his elbows over Rob, and holds his eyes while he takes him in his mouth. And he quietly abandons his fight against his libido, with the first movement of Joe’s head up and down Rob’s cock. 

Then Joe chokes, which at least takes the whole thing out of the realm of porn. Rob shoves at his shoulder and there’s something in his eyes that makes him wish he wasn’t there. Joe slips off obediently, and lies on his back while Rob—and this should be awkward and clumsy—scoots down the bed till they’re level. Kisses his forehead and temple and eyelids and lips, lets Joe catch him by the back of his neck and run a hand through his too-short hair. Drops down till he’s kneeling between Joe’s feet. 

The actual act—Rob peeling Joe’s trousers off, Rob’s hands, Rob’s mouth on Joe’s cock, Rob’s head moving up and down, Rob’s hand, pale and thin, clutching Joe’s hips—would probably have been enough to get him as hard as he is. The way Joe gropes down to find Rob’s hand and fold his fingers over them almost sends him off. 

He’s seen Debbie and Joe kiss. Same with K.D. and whatever girl he’d been with at the time. Rob’s terribly private—necessity as much as inclination—and the fact that he’s seeing Rob giving someone—Joe—a blowjob twists something, as much as seeing his throat work—Sakshi spits. Every goddamn time—does.  

Joe pushes up to curl over Rob, and fasten both hands on his forearms, and physically drag him upwards till Rob’s straddling his lap. They’re barely a foot from him—he could raise a hand and touch Rob’s cheek, Joe’s shoulder. But he doesn’t, because, for all that little space, they’re in their own room, and he could just as well not be there. Watches, entranced, and more than a little unnerved by how aroused he is, as Joe lays his head on Rob’s shoulder and strokes him, slow and terribly close to gentle, other arm round his waist, while Rob closes his eyes and grits his teeth and still moans something inarticulate and pounds a fist into Joe’s shoulder when he comes. 

He gets up, off the bed, on feet that are barely steady enough to support him. He’s done what Joe asked of him. He’s sat and watched, and he still doesn’t know why, and he’s confused and hard and more than a little scared. And he really, really, needs to go into a bathroom and jerk off. Right fucking now. 

“Stay,” Joe says. Rob looks around, eyes still not quite focused. 

“I’ll be back,” he says, voice hoarse. Joe nods, lays his head back on Rob’s shoulder, runs his hand over his ribs, slow and searching.  

He gets out, slams the door shut, leans against it. Breathes, till his breaths slow down, till his heart stops hammering against his ribs. Goes around the house, shutting doors and fastening windows. Pours himself a glass of cold water. Another. Stops in front of his room and contemplates the grim jacking off and lonely cold bed and likely sleepless night ahead of him. Almost steps in, because it’s their night, and he doesn’t trust the invitation.  

But he _wants_ , damn it, so he turns away from the sterile room. 

Enters theirs, and feels more of a voyeur than before. Because it’s been ten minutes, and they’ve cleaned up and struggled back into their clothes. But they’re holding each other. Joe’s on his back and Rob’s lying half-on-top of him. And they’re kissing. All the guilt of intruding crashes down on him, standing in the doorway, watching his best-friends lying tangled together, and he turns to go. But they’ve seen him, were watching for him, and Rob shifts a little, and Joe snakes one arm from round his waist and he… 

Walks into the room, fishes his cell out, switches it off, tosses it away.  

Joe wraps a hand round his wrist and tugs him down to the bed, then holds him in place so he can’t move, can’t put space between them. He doesn’t want to—can’t say it, won’t think it—it feels viscerally right, not just that they’re entangled, but that they’ve made space for him. It’s wrong, he knows. Doesn’t change anything. 

Rob smiles at him, face pressed to Joe’s and presses a kiss to Joe’s temple—caress, benediction, permission, approval. 

He breathes in. Breathes out. Breathes in. Breathes out. 

And between two breaths, falls asleep. 


End file.
